World Class Poetry Day

“Love adorns itself; it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty.

Love does not claim possession,

but gives freedom

Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.

Love's gift cannot be given,
it waits to be accepted”. Tagore

Sharpham Poetry Fair – a houseful of poems

I've been to the Sharpham Estate many times. The beauty of the building and its location on the Dart never fail to move me, actually the place blows me away. As I turned the corner to the entrance, gentle music drifted from speakers and I was greeted by the view of the river below and the bright green growth of the woodlands lining the Ancient river's embankment. A river brought into national and international consciousness by Alice Oswald and her tribute to its waters and the life touched by it. Alice was present and organised the poetry day at Sharpham including an impressive selection of local, and global poets.

As I entered the main building and walked through to the foot of the grand staircase I was hit by that familiar festival feeling – which event to go to? I wanted to be in more than one room at once. There were a series of stairwell performances mixed with open performances in the various rooms on the ground floor including a captivating, interactive digital tribute to Tagore by Jerome Fletcher and J.R Carpenter.

Matt Harvey made his second appearance at the festival. I've probably heard his 'Thwoc' tennis tone poem, created during his residency at Wimbledon Tennis Club, performed live at least 5 times. I try and resist it, wanting something new, but each time he gets to the match point of the piece I am humbled into submission by the fact that this is a gentle work of genius. He told me after the event that his father was illustrating the poem and a book was in the pipeline. This I want to see.

Yet another festival first for me was Zena Edwards. Zena mixes her soulful voice, street speak and a prodigious gift for sharp, emotive poetry like a DJ – powerful, moving and magical. Her song, words and rhythms filled the stairwell and brought the house to fierce life. I moved closer, sat on the hard floor and looked up the stairwell to the audience leaning over the balcony, realising this space was refreshingly unique in providing a performance platform that could be seen from above below and at eye level. I found myself drawn to watching the crowd as much as the performer. Poetry surrounded me in the form of artist, performance space and audience.

The final performance of the evening was due to be from poetic champions Simon Armitage, former poet laureate Andrew Motion and Brian Patten. Brian and Andrew made it but Simon had broken his leg that morning, the announcement drawing gasps from the crowd. Motion and Patten filled the space Simon sadly had left, beautifully. These men make poetry look easy but it is clearly a result of many years hard graft. I had heard Patten's work on Radio 4's 'Poetry Please' many times, but to hear him in person was a powerful connecting experience, bringing me closer to the realms of death, friendship, shirts and dresses!

At the end of the event I found myself sitting outside in the warmth of the May evening on the same table as Andrew Motion, Matt Harvey, Tagore translator, Anuman Biswaz and London poet Malika Booker. It was for this writer and part -time poet a surprisingly relaxed (there is understandable awe and a little angst in this kind of company) and connected end to an evening of blazing, moving and thought provoking poetry.

Celebration for the power of the written word and its ability to connect us all to the beautiful, finer details of everyday life and the divinity that exists within it and us all.

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback.

http://www.casparwalsh.co.uk/

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Tagore Tales - The Secret of Success

Mahatma Ghandi was visiting Tagore. Following lunch, Gandhi went to take rest when some of the ashram workers, followers of Tagore, approached him.
"Can you help us, Gandhiji? We are worried about the health of Rabindranath Tagore, he is not keeping good health. The Doctors advised him to take rest, but he refuses. We do not want his health to fail."
Gandhi asked, "Why do you want me to tell him to rest?"
"We know he will not go against your advice."

After Gandhi had rested awhile, he went to Tagore's residence and saw that he was deeply immersed in his work. When Tagore looked up and saw Gandhi standing there he asked him, "Are you not comfortable that you have come out from your rest so soon?"
Gandhi replied: "I have come to ask you to take rest after your lunch so your health does not fail. You are not keeping fit these days."
Tagore replied: "How can I do that? I must tell you the truth so that you will understand. When I was 12 I took a vow never to rest at any time during the day for any reason. Up to now I have kept that vow. How many more years do I have to live? Why would I break that vow now?"
Tagore's determination and commitment to his promise moved Gandhi. For 67 years Tagore had never rested during the day. Gandhi was impressed by his commitment to his goal and told him, "Now I know the secret of your success!"

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk
http://www.casparwalsh.co.uk/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/caspar-walsh

The Soul and Heart of Environmental Art

"I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea with its waterfall.
The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.
Let my love, like sunlight, surround you
and yet give you illumined freedom.

Love remains a secret even when spoken,
for only a lover truly knows that he is loved"
Tagore, excerpt from 'Fireflies'

Having feasted on many events in the first few days of the Tagore festival, I scaled back and made the decision to go to only one on Tuesday. A tough decision. I opted for Chris Drury. It was the best possible choice. I had seen Chris's work for the first time in Resurgence and was immediately struck and captivated by the simplicity and beauty of what he is creating in the world. Artworks in stone, wood, water, ice and even mushrooms... ! draw easy comparisons to Andy Goldsworthy and Antony Gormley, artists I've admired for many years. Chris's work equals both Goldsworthy and Gormley. He very much ploughs his own furrow, creating completely original, environmentally inspired works of art.

I arrived a few minutes late to the event because I 'd spent ten minutes looking for a parking space. The festival is very well attended – the eco worrier (no spelling mistake) in me was muttering and wondering how many of the rides were shared?

Chris's event was presented as a slide show of some of his recent works across the world with different groups, communities and tribes. He narrated his way through the creation of stone and wood works in a UK hospital inspired by the images of a cardiogram. Massive reconstructions of the formations and flows of arctic wind on the freshly snow covered ice sheet where he used satellite images of the wind flows uploaded onto a GPS satellite navigation system. He then attached the GPS to a skidoo (motorised sled), and followed the lines carefully, scaled up large and 'drawn' in the snow by the skidoo's skis. He then photographed the reconstructed lines of wind in ice from a high vantage point. Utterly inspiring and ingenious.

I literally drew a sharp in take of breath when he talked us through the slides of his recreation of a nuclear mushroom cloud out of sprigs of sage from the New Mexico desert where the first nuclear tests changed the world forever. The dried sage (used in cleansing rituals around the world) was hung from the ceiling in a multitude of pieces, forming a facsimile of the mushroom-shaped cloud that became synonymous with mankind's most destructive bomb. Chris repeated the concept in Italy using dried mushrooms, lit stunningly from beneath. I have never seen anything like it. I absolutely loved this work.

A sharp observation from the audience from a long term environmental campaigner highlighted the recent acceptance from environmental groups that the heavy message of environmental catastrophe simply wasn't getting through to the masses. What was though, was environmental art. For me the kind of art Chris creates opens up the heart and soul before the cynical mind can distract me from a deeper truth, leaving me much more open to the messages that relate or connect to that work.

Chris clearly has a message and a passion for the natural world and is constantly looking at ways to connect technology, nature, life and death and create artworks that move and inspire. He warned that as an artist it was a bad idea to approach environmental art with a world changing agenda; 'it kills the heart of it.' He said he always looked for the connections in nature, the bridges between objects and ideas and this was his driving force. The eco message comes later, as a bonus not a primary driver.

As I'm writing, I realise I wish I'd gone to meet him and buy his book so he could sign it for me. I will buy it anyway. His work, the heart and soul of it, filled The Barn Cinema with hushed reverence from the audience and left me feeling nourished and connected and even more ready to bring my own creativity deeper into the world in the hope that hearts and minds will be opened and if I'm lucky, agendas aside, there will be a greater reverence and respect for our life and impact on the earth.
Tagore would be proud.

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/caspar-walsh

A Feast of Ideas and Passions

Tagore 150 at Dartington Hall
1^st to 7^th May 2011

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky

and I lift my eager eyes to thy face

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish

– no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tear
Tagore, extract from 'Brink of Eternity'

A full day of food for thought, belly and heart – and a little more food for the belly than usual! The curry tent and its hypnotic music is becoming a regular haunt for this writer with its generous portions of wholesome spicy, home cooked vegetables served by a friendly duo who clearly love their work.

Wandering through the grounds listening to discussion sparked by events and talks, bumping into old friends, making new ones easily through the shared, unspoken understanding that by the nature of being at the festival we are of the same tribe, idea, belief and passion, wanting a better world full of creativity, connection and a desire for deep change. The weather held and at times offered bursts of sunlight followed by welcome warmth cutting through the cool days of May after so much April sunshine.

I have heard and read much of Jane Goodall and her work but had no idea just how much she has done and is doing in the world to help make it a better, more loved and respected place for humans, animals and plant kingdom alike. And it is clearly a better place for her life within it.

In defiant defence of our world and all the beings within it, Jane is indeed a force of nature. The Great Hall was packed. Her message delivered clearly and simply. No one could mistake her feelings of despair for the world we have created; she made the 'we' very clear. But she possesses an unflinching faith for the possibilities of change and the hope she has for a better world. Very much in line with here her Roots and Shoots charity motto 'Never Give Up.'

It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the staggering accomplishments of her life and for me to think, “how could I get close to that, why bother?” but she clearly believes we are all capable of making an important difference in the world no matter how small – and in fact we must. It's not simply up to the politicians to do this. We are the leaders we've been waiting for. I couldn't agree more.

Questions from the floor seemed at times to be more about personal platforms for individual work and beliefs and at one point a gallery questioner almost seemed to be moving into a heckle about the destructive force of technology, demanding a response from Jane. She held the question firm, making it clear that for her, technology used correctly, was a key part of our future and has a place in helping to alleviate poverty and the reliance on fossil fuels. I couldn't help thinking about her momentous discovery of the chimpanzee who had created a tool to eat termites and how this changed the world view of humans being unique because they are the only species to create tools.

She then unseated religion and belief as being another key division between animals and man with her story of seeing a group of chimps dancing by a massive waterfall, hurling rocks into the water, staring up at the cascading water in wonder and how this echoed mankind's nature based beliefs and the worship of mystery and beauty in the natural world.

Jane received a much-deserved standing ovation.

Stephan Harding and Philip Franses delivered an ambitious 45-minute talk on the relationship between Einstein and Tagore using Goethe as the bridging point. I heard somewhere that it is good to read or engage with material, words or ideas that requires thought, every day. This certainly demanded some mind bending concepts to get my head around, imagining riding beams of light and ending where you began before you've even left your starting point (part of Einstein's discussion on light as an immeasurable force). I left a little baffled but boosted by the colour they brought to the talk and their evident, shared passion for blending science and belief in a positive and workable way.

There is a feast of ideas and passions at this festival and I would be wise not to gorge myself too early in my hungry search for creative, spiritual and intellectual satisfaction. Time to wander and sit and digest and let the ideas percolate and of course, eat a little more curry...

Tagore Tales
Rabindranath Tagore. William Rothenstein in his book Men and Memories quotes a story of what happened when Yeats arranged a small dinner for Tagore before he left for India. After dinner, “we asked Tagore to sing Bande Mataram. He hummed the tune but after the first words he broke down; he could not remember the rest.

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk

The Vision Becomes a Reality

Tagore 150 at Dartington Hall Estate

1^st to 7^th May 2011

“O Sun of India's sky,
O World-Poet,
O Moon of Bengal's heart,
You were beautiful in your inner life,
You were beautiful in your outer life,

You were beauty incarnate in God's entire creation.
Gloriously and triumphantly you secure your place
In the world-assembly with your creative force,
Supremely meaningful and fruitful in various walks of life.”

- Sri Chinmoy from 'My India'

Illustration by Norman Young

There could be no better or appropriate place in England than the Dartington Hall Estate to hold the celebratory festival marking 150 years since the birth of the great artist, philosopher and social activist, Rabindranath Tagore. The festival has been two years in the making and spearheaded by Tagore adorer and Resurgence Editor in Chief, Satish Kumar. The high level of organisation involved; the vision and passion to honour Tagore and his life's work is now buzzing through Dartington Hall and the surrounding grounds. There is a palpable sense of pride at the many events on offer and the list of luminaries who have signed up in great number to discuss their unique interpretations of Tagore's work and life.

I am drawn to the festival as a writer and I confess, prior to the first day on Sunday the 1^st of May, I was for the most part, ignorant to the scale of Tagore's work and its impact on the world.

My many teachers told me about the great writers and poets, but only ever about the English ones. I never heard the name, Tagore once mentioned. He began to get my attention proper soon after I moved to Dartington in 2008 in relation to his significant influence on the founders of the Dartington Hall Trust, the Elmhursts'. But Tagore still remained pretty much, just a name, making little impact on my ill educated western mind. I had also not heard of Tagore's epic work of poems 'Gitanjali', which won him the Nobel prize for literature in 1913.

An interpretation of 'Gitanjali' was presented on Sunday evening in the Great Hall as an audio visual event to mark the opening day of the festival. Within five minutes of being immersed in the beautiful montage of slides projected onto the Great Hall walls, Tagore's poetry writ large alongside, exemplary live music and dance and pitch perfect recitations, I became fully and acutely aware of what the fuss was and still is, all about. The poems featured within these sublime ninety minutes were clearly devotional and expressed the pure joy of Tagore's life in relation to nature and nature in relation to the fullness of blissful, human experience. Believe me, it's not easy to write poems about bliss. Poems about pain and heartache flow easy compared to the unique ability to express a view of the world through joy and a pure heart without reverting to shmaltz. Tagore achieves simple, clean and beautiful devotional poetry with apparent ease, producing something brilliant, clear and memorable. The show received a much deserved standing ovation.

Preceding 'Gitanjali' was the staged performance piece, 'The Awakening' bringing together three women from Tagore's poetry, fiction and drama. Four very accomplished dancers brought this work to life accompanied by a storyteller and traditional musicians. Aside from an early problem with sound, this was superb. Another first for me. Their skill as dancers was mesmerising; each with their own individual style. Having the story unfold through dance, alongside recitations kept me fully engaged throughout and falling a little in love with the colour of the outfits and the beauty of the dancers.

I noticed an artist scribbling away next to me trying to capture their rapid movement and energy. I asked him to scan and send them to me to share them with you here:

Tagore Tales

After Wilfred Owen lost his life in the first World War, a letter written for his mother in the event of his death was found in his tunic. It quoted Tagore with these chilling, beautiful words from 'Gitanjali':

“When I go from here, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable”

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk

The Minute and Miraculous

After the long, lagging winter, the season of singing is at last upon us. Fuzzy buds and blossoms burst from the trees and shoots come burning up from the ground in a colorful profusion.  Minute wonders surround us, yet they are so easily overlooked. The petals of magnolia or bluebells when examined closely reveal how they draw and translate their beauty from water and light – into prismatic glory.

In these signs of vernal renewal I find a kind of counter balance issuing from Nature; an answer to the human-created chaos unfolding around the globe. We wage war, poison Earth and sea – yet still, she sings. The exquisite trills of robins, spinning out like dewdrops along a spider’s silken line are, just like the flowers, awash in light. 

In spring perhaps more than any other season, we sense reminders of the divine all around us.  This ancient, eternal dance of renewal brings into perspective this current blink of history, overshadowed by the rage of homo sapiens. Flowers and birds were here first and in one form or another, they shall endure and in this, there is a certain solace. And for those so inclined, invitation stands, that if even for a few moments, we may set down the human drama and “be as the lilies” – discover to our delight, that there exists a place for us within the symphony.

Leah Lemieux is an author and lecturer who works on dolphin protection, education and conservation initiatives. www.RekindlingTheWaters.com

April

The tree that the Celts traditionally associated with April was the hawthorn, a tree of love and fertility. But the hawthorn does not usually flower until May which is why it is also called the May tree. The blackthorn flowers now, around Easter. Its soft white blossom is in stark contrast to its harsh black thorns. Known as the crown of thorns, the blackthorn tells us of the difficult tasks that must be faced, indeed, that cannot be avoided. This is the place of shadow that must be honoured before the fullness of spring can be enjoyed.

In the mythology of hawthorn, we hear more of these difficult tasks. The hawthorn goddess Olwen was the daughter of Yspaddaden Pencawr or Giant Hawthorn.  She was known as ‘She of the white track’, for white blossom sprang up wherever she walked, leaving white tracks across the land, just as the flowering of hawthorn in the hedgerows does now. The nephew of King Arthur, Culhwych, fell in love with her and was set by her father countless impossible tasks before he could claim her hand. He was helped by the Knights of the Round Table and won his bride.

So Olwen’s white track becomes the bridal train leading us across the land to the place of union. Here where the sun and earth are joined in the marriage that is spring, where the masculine and feminine within us become one, this is our inner alchemical wedding. April is the time of preparation for this, where the sacred tasks are set.

But just as the hawthorn does not blossom until the end of April, it can be hard in the early part of the month to discern our white track from all the others available to us. Its whiteness, as it were, is not apparent yet. The white track is not a road of oughts and shoulds, it is a path of heart. We may not recognise it until we feel it. Stepping onto it thrills us to the core.

Ian Siddons Heginworth is an environmental arts therapist, founder of the Devon-based Wild Things community programme and author of Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, Spirit’s Rest Books. www.environmentalartstherapy.co.uk